For many poor women, welfare and family assistance was their primary means of escaping abusive mates. Such programs provided support for them and their children. Cutbacks in welfare have now caused a dramatic drop in the number who dare attempt to flee hurtful relationships. Low paying jobs, chronic unemployment, and poverty in general have left many impoverished women with few survival resources.

In desperate attempts at finding means of support and escaping their batterers, some women turn to drug dealing–which, in turn, helps explain the sharp increase in the female prison population. In recent years, the number of women in prison has climbed to over 200,000 with African-American women being hardest hit by the lock-’em-up craze.

Incarcerated women endure poor medical care, sexual harassment, forced strip searches, beatings, and repeated rape by male guards. The United States is one of the few countries that allow unaccompanied male staff to supervise female prisoners … //

… Heavy sentences are also inflicted upon those who resort to self-defense. Often a woman’s choice is twenty years in prison for injuring or killing her domestic abuser or getting beaten to death herself. This war against women is part of the “war against crime.” We are supposed to feel more secure thanks to all these heartless measures.

The Roots of Religion – Genevieve Von Petzinger, 19.32 min, uploaded by TEDx Talks, Dec 19, 2015 … a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Victoria, Genevieve Von Petzinger’s main area of interest is understanding the geometric imagery of European Ice Age rock art and how we can use this type of behavior to identify cognitive and symbolic evolution in modern humans. Her work was featured on the cover of New Scientist in 2010 and Science Illustrated in 2011, and she has also appeared on the Discovery Channel’s popular program Daily Planet;